This invention relates to cameras, and more particularly to a camera comprising a camera body extended along the optical axis.
In developing a camera, it is essential to take into consideration its portability, operability, and economy of production in order to provide it at low cost.
A single-lens reflex camera has a fundamental configuration which has been developed as a so-called "lateral camera" in which the camera body extends across the optical axis, and has a camera body gripping part on the right-hand side thereof. However, this configuration is disadvantageous for the following reasons. The camera body is relatively low in portability when compared with a thin camera body, because the penta prism and lens barrel protrude therefrom. Furthermore, since the camera body gripping part is provided at the right-hand end of the lateral camera body, it is rather difficult to hold the camera body stable with only one hand.
On the other hand, a thin camera has been disclosed in Japanese patent application publication No. 10405/1973. The disclosed thin camera is a motion picture camera having a camera body grip on the bottom. Therefore, the camera is free from the above-described difficulty of having the camera held only on one side. However, it suffers from another difficulty in that the provision of the camera body grip makes it difficult to make the camera compact. That is, the camera is low in portability and economy of production.
In the field of motion picture cameras, a flat-rectangular-box-shaped motion picture camera has been known which is obtained by removing protruding components such as the illuminating light, the lens barrel and the body grip such as that from the abovedescribed thin camera. Such a camera is excellent in portability because it has no protruding parts. However, it involves the following drawback. During the phototaking operation, the operator must hold the camera with the thumb on the bottom of the camera body and with the other three or four fingers on the top of the camera body. Accordingly, the weight of the camera is applied to the thumb which can become fatigued in a short period of time.